10cc-Alive: The Classic Hits Tour

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Interviews-Cast-3:27, 4x3
Rating
Year Of Production	?
Running Time	87:05 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	None Given

    10cc is a band that had its heyday back in the late 70s and early 80s. For a while, they faded from view but had a short revival that included a new album in the early 1990s before once again disappearing from the scene. This is a made-for-TV concert recorded on their 1993 tour of Japan, where the band had its greatest success and includes many of their early classics, many of their covers and some new material from their then new album. For those of you who enjoyed their songs or were fans of the group, this is a chance to revisit the music that made them so popular in their day.

    If you aren't knowledgeable about the band, there is a very concise history of the band on the inside jacket which explains who the members were, where they came from and the line-up changes over the years. This is a nice addition and makes a change from the usual blank inside cover. The whole musical repertoire of 10cc can be categorised as a mix of reggae and pop. The influence of reggae in their music can be seen in their cover of Bob Marley's Dreadlock Holiday and the style in which Paperback Writer is performed. There is also a quite 'Latin' rendition of Art for Art's Sake which makes a nice change of pace. Some of my favourites including Rubber Bullets and Life is a Minestrone are presented in the first of two encores as a montage joined by a rendition of Silly Love. This is a simplistic concert in terms of movement and sound. It doesn't look as if it's been held in anything more than a small hall, but in the hands of a skilled group of musicians with some brilliant lyrics, this is a really laid back disc to enjoy.

Video

    Looks like this was made for NHK TV in Japan and quite possibly has been captured direct to video. Concerts of this type are rarely of quality and this is no exception. What we are offered is only just better than any VHS tape and with the quality of many music DVDs on offer this doesn't set the world on fire with any standards of excellence.

    The transfer is presented in a Full Frame aspect ratio (1.33:1) and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness is mostly poor except where the ubiquitous edge enhancement shines through in all its black outlined glory, such as at 27:21, where Graham Gouldman sports a lovely black line right around his profile). The level of shadow detail is fairly consistent, although there isn't much to see in the background so it doesn't present an issue. For the most part, grain on offer is fairly low, the exception being when the smoke machine is in use when it increases slightly. Noise is absent, offering consistent blacks throughout.

    The colour is affected greatly by the amount of lighting in use. This is strictly a concert setting, so overly bright or filtered lighting really does make the colours flare out or look slightly reddish. The worst effect is to make skin tones look red-tinged on occasion. There isn't a large selection of colours on offer and bleeding or noise within the colour selection is absent.

    There isn't much of a problem in the MPEG department which was pleasing. Overall, there were no obvious or reportable film-to-video or film artefacts worth noting supporting the view that this was recorded direct to tape.

    The only subtitles on this disc are the burned-in titles of the various songs, rendered in both English and Japanese.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Although the video isn't anything to write home about, the audio is a little better, although since it's only presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 with some slight surround bleed but not encoded as such, this was a little disappointing. Before you get the idea that this is all bad news, if you remember 10cc's main musical thrust as being fairly light pop or reggae, without a real edge to it, the lack of surrounds or subwoofer isn't that big an issue. Still, a nice enveloping sound is always more enjoyable but there is a nice smattering of reggae, pop and Latin sounds and what you get with this transfer is actually surprisingly good considering the low bitrate of 192 kilobits per second. The sound is fairly solid across the front speakers, with the vocals being present in the centre at all times. There is a good bass from the fronts, which is pleasantly surprising, giving the whole concert a much deeper bass sound overall.

    There were no noticeable problems with the sound throughout except for the fact that it sounded to me that it had a hollow quality to it at times and sounded like they recorded it in a very acoustic-unfriendly venue.

    There was some slight surround channel bleed, but nothing that added anything to the overall quality of the disc.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Interview-Cast

    This is a multi-region disc and as far as I can ascertain no other Region has this disc for sale at this time.

    This is mostly one for the fans of the band. Made for NHK TV in Japan (from the looks of it), this is no more than VHS quality in video with slightly better audio on offer. Extras are lamentable in a word, but if you want a decent enough collection of the best of 10cc on DVD, this will fill the void nicely.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall